The Art Of Dying
by Ballykissangel
Summary: Anthea was all too familiar with the weighty ghost, otherwise known as magic tricks and the art of dying. It's what happens when you are a Moriarty; you get used to dying. Finding something to protect and live for is the tricky part. This is my personal AU head-cannon and Anthea history/character study set after The Reichenbach Fall. Mythea friendship and heavy angst. No slash.


_A/N: This is a personal headcanon about Anthea's background history and her relationship with the Holmes brothers._

_Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock, I'm just visiting around with them._

* * *

As she patiently waited on the large unmarked sailboat, Anthea ignored the cold, bitter wind blowing around her off the storm grey colored water. Checking to see that she was indeed, finally alone, the tired woman put her hand in her coat pocket and pulled out the red chess piece. She looked down at it with a fond, distracted smile.

The queen piece had been her companion through many games; both of the mind and of chess. The once brilliant red paint was faded now; the curved and rounded edges worn down with age with a small hairline crack marring the smooth perfection of her face.

Jim had given it to her when they were just kids; before everything had changed and they were separated. Instead of a goodbye and good luck, the boy who had raised her, flipped the red queen into her lap and left her one last piece of advice. He told her that something as simple as an ordinary chess piece could control anything and anyone it wanted. He was right.

She remembered calling him that day as he held John Watson and Sherlock at gunpoint beside the pool. She could still see the stone cold expression of concern and agitation on Mycroft's face, as he stood close beside her when she made the call.

_"I have an offer for you. Something you can't refuse."_

_**"And what would that be, exactly? You refused all of my offers a long time ago and you chose 'Them'."**_

_"All I want is to play a little game like old times; a simple game of chess for the information that you want as trade for you to leave John Watson and Sherlock Holmes alone for tonight."_

**_"That's a very tempting offer, but why would I ever play another game with you and one with such boring prizes? I'm disappointed in you, Spook. We used to play for higher stakes. Are you losing your touch or are you accepting that you can't beat me again? Oh, and by the way, I love the name you're using these days. It's prettier than your first one."_**

_"I want to play again because, I'm the one who first taught you, remember? And no, I haven't accepted anything yet. Those prizes; John Watson and Sherlock Holmes are all that I want. They are rather boring stakes, I do admit, but even you can't pass up those odds; playing against my weak spot; the Object you have searched so long for."_

**_"And you remember the last time that we played, you cheated me and I cut off your wings. How long can you stay in the shadows and protect 'Them' without your wings? You can't watch over 'Them' forever, you know. If I do not kill you first, one day they will. They will be your ending and you... know... it."_**

_"Maybe so, but for now, I have what you want and you have what I want. It would be such a shame to pass up a chance like this; they may not be as special to me in the future. You know how it goes."_

**_"I miss our games, Spook, I really do, but what was the thing you told me the last time we met? Oh yes. 'I'd rather die alone and without my wings than to live forever on the top of the world with you."_**

_"I meant it. I have many regrets in my life, but I will never regret 'Them'."_

**_"I suppose that I accept your invitation, but before we meet, tell me, half-sister mine, after all that I did to offer you a place beside me, what made you choose him and the offer that he made you, instead?"_**

_"He said please…"_

The red queen had been her last trick that night, and was the winning move in that game between Moriarty and Anthea. She remembered the look of mixed rage and thrilled admiration in Jim's eyes the moment he realized that he had been beaten with his own chess piece. It had been years since she had faced an enemy and took such a huge risk by purposely showing a weakness before them. Perhaps it was because it had been years since she had fought for someone who was worth it.

Even though she had managed to keep Moriarty from hurting John and Sherlock by manoeuvring her familiar madman into a corner that had led to his capture, she felt for the first time in a very long time, the casualty and price of winning.

The day Mycroft had coldly informed her they were releasing Moriarty; she had felt sick. After everything they had gone through to catch him, he was going to be allowed to walk away. Anthea knew that the master criminal would go underground for while, but then he would resurface with a vengeance just like he always did.

These days it was a rare occasion that Anthea and Mycroft would fight or raise their voices at each other. They did, of course, have a history of fights in the past, especially when they had been younger and when they first met. They had formed a system over the years, where they usually avoided the heated arguments and managed to silently reason with each other, but that one dreadful day they threw the 'calm system' completely out the window, and it was taking forever to return to how they once had been. Their relationship still wasn't the same and they still had not found their way back. Anthea wasn't sure if they could find a way around this one; they might have to file it away in the corner of unspoken guilt and choked apologies.

As she predicted, Moriarty had returned, just like clock work, after Sherlock with a scheme of fierce and twisted retribution. Now, just a few short hours later and a thousand miles away from the blood stained pavement of St. Bart's and a tormented ex-army doctor, Mycroft and Anthea were the ones who were trying to collect and hold onto the shattered pieces that were the lives of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

Anthea couldn't forget the look in Mycroft's eyes the night before last; after the tear-stained John Watson had been escorted home and as she, and the Holmes brothers were resting and regrouping at Mycroft's empty mansion. All Mycroft could do was stand silently by and watch as Anthea knelt beside Sherlock on the cold bathroom tile; the fake blood stiffening on her jacket as she gently helped an exhausted Sherlock wash the dried blood from his hair and face. He offered no resistance or protest as they sat on the bathroom floor; the mental violence of John's cries overcoming him in those brief minutes before he made them disappear. As she was bending over the curly, blood soaked head, Anthea lifted her gaze to meet Mycroft's troubled one and they both had known that the next time, simple misdirection tricks would not be on their side and the brother's blood would be real.

That's what happened when you play a never-ending game with someone's life in the balance. Even after all the victories, you can never quite save them, no matter how hard you try to and one day, you will lose them completely, and you turn out not to be their protector after all. Anthea couldn't shake off the burden that one day, she would be washing the blood of both the Holmes men out of her clothes.

She sighed silently as she watched the two brothers in the distance, stiffly bid farewell to each other on the sandy beach and silently walk away in opposite directions. As Mycroft slowly walked closer to the boat, leaving his brother behind to start his new life and new identity, Anthea knew it was going to be a very long and hard journey for all of them.

She glanced down at her Blackberry; they hadn't found Jim's body. Until she saw Jim's body for herself and searched for a pulse, she refused to accept that he was dead and that the Holmes brothers were safe from him. Jim might be after Sherlock during this time, but if Moriarty ever managed to destroy him, he would go after Mycroft next for the sake of watching him suffer even more after the ruin of his little brother.

Anthea slowly ran her hand over her hair and held her head in silent frustration. She pushed aside the feeling of reluctant admittance that even if it did take all that Sherlock had, even with Mycroft and Anthea helping him, and he did mange to destroy Moriarty's web and return to his old life, there was no promise that everything would be the same.

Anthea was all too familiar with the weighty ghost, otherwise known as magic tricks and the art of dying.


End file.
